Arena PvP system
Arenas are areas in which teams of players can compete against each other in deathmatch-style PvP. Instead of participating in objective-based PvP, these contests center around your team's ability to obliterate the other team. The Arena PvP system matches teams of equal size together to increase fairness and make advancement to the highest tiers more difficult and more rewarding. The arena allows for 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5, but your team may have up to double the amount required for one fight (i.e. a 2v2 team can have four people in it). Unlike normal PvP, the arena also allows intra-faction competition. Only level 80 player characters can gain a team rating or Arena Points (This was level 70 before season 5). Characters below level 80 can engage in practice matches. Teams require an Arena Team Charter in order to create an official team. Arena Points are used as the currency to purchase Arena Rewards, which are considered to be on par with some of the mid-to high level PvE rewards, Season 1 items being roughly equivalent to Tier 4, Season 2 to Tier 5, Season 3 to Tier 6, and the upcoming Season 4 to Tier 6.5. for the obvious fact that Tier gear is designed to kill mobs and PVE content, while PVP gear is designed to kill other players and offer high survivability for pvp. Many players have full PVE and PVP sets and switch depending on content. Five Arenas are currently available: * The Ring of Trials in Nagrand * The Circle of Blood in Blade's Edge Mountains * The Ruins of Lordaeron in Tirisfal Glades (released in patch 2.1) * The Dalaran Arena in the Underbelly of Dalaran * The Ring of Valor in Orgrimmar Objective Other PVP modes involve holding or running flags, which emphasizes team makeup rather than strategy. In arena PvP, the goal is simply to kill your opponents. Thus, class synergy is crucial, and tactics and coordination are much more important. Types Players can participate in the Arena in two ways. The type you wish to participate in is selected when speaking to the Arena Battlemaster. Skirmish All players of any level can participate in a skirmish battle. No Team Ratings or Arena Points are assigned and you do not need to be a member of an Arena Team to Skirmish. Rated Match Players who are at least level 80 and on an Arena Team (created with an Arena Team Charter) may participate in a Rated Match. After the match, each team has its Team Rating adjusted accordingly (See below for details on Team Rating Calculations). Creating a Team To create an Arena Team one must purchase an Arena Charter from any NPCs: * "King" Dond - Located at The Ring of Trials in Nagrand * Bip Nigstrom - Located at Gadgetzan in Tanaris * Steamwheedle Sam - Located at Circle of Blood in Blade's Edge Mountains * Kanika Goldwell - Dalaran Sewers You must be level 80 to purchase one; they are available in three formats: *Arena Team Charter (2v2) - *Arena Team Charter (3v3) - *Arena Team Charter (5v5) - Once a charter is purchased, it must be signed by the number of players the Team Charter is for, and then returned to an to formalize the team and select the team banner. The first time the Arena Team is created, it starts with 1500 Team Rating that you must raise by fighting against other groups, however as of season 6 newly formed teams have their Team Rating set to 0(Patch 3.1). To leave or disband a team, you can type /teamdisband 3v3, or 5v5 or /teamquit 3v3, or 5v5. Gameplay Pre-Match Upon zoning into the Arena instance, players start in a "holding area", health, mana, and energy are all restored, all buffs, conjured items are removed and pets are dismissed. (Debuffs will remain, and pets can be resummoned once you zone in.) Players are also given the Arena Preparation buff, which removes the casting cost of all abilities (including Soul Shards). After 60 seconds of preparation, the match commences. All buffs with fewer than 25 seconds remaining are removed and rage/runic power is reset to 0. The Fight Players battle it out until all the members of one team are defeated or choose to leave. Abilities with a cooldown longer than 15 minutes cannot be used during Arena combat (including Rebirth). Conjured consumables, bandages and Star's Tears may be used. Other consumables may not. Once a player dies, they can choose to release and observe the remainder of the match as a ghost. Post-Match Much like the Battlegrounds, after a match is completed a statistics window is shown that displays total damage and healing done. The Arena window also shows the Team Rating adjustment as a result of the match. Arena rating system Arena rating calculation of each match is based on the ELO Rating System which is used by the international chess rating system. The ELO system takes the score of two opponents and calculates a statistical chance of winning based off those scores. After the match it uses the difference between the calculated chance of winning and the actual results. The difference between the two probabilities is then applied to the maximum amount of points allowed per match. Having a maximum amount makes sure teams have to play a large number of matches instead of just getting lucky and beating one team with a high ranking score. Example of a match rating calculation: :Team A's Current Score: 1500pt :Team B's Current Score: 1580pt :Team A's Chance of Winning: 1 / (1+10(1580 - 1500)/400) = 0.38686 :Team B's Chance of Winning: 1 / (1+10(1500 - 1580)/400) = 0.61314 :Now Let's say Team A won the battle then :Team A's New Score: 1500 + 32*(1 - 0.38686) = 1500 + 19.62 = 1519.62 :Team B's New Score: 1580 + 32*(0 - 0.61314) = 1580 + (-19.62) = 1560.38 :Now Let's say Team B won the battle then :Team A's New Score: 1500 + 32*(0 - 0.38686) = 1500 + (-12.38) = 1487.62 :Team B's New Score: 1580 + 32*(1 - 0.61314) = 1580 + 12.38 = 1592.38 The K value used by Blizzard is 32. So each match, the maximum rating gain/loss will be 32pts. And if you play with a team with same rating, you will gain/lose exactly 16pts. As you can see when a team with a higher ranking score wins a match against a lower ranking team, they receive fewer points than if the lower rank team won. Arena Point Calculation "The transformation from your Team Rating to Arena Points starts off as a linear function, but once you go beyond a certain rating threshold, the function becomes logistic. Logistic function This means that you will see a significant payoff increase once your Team Rating goes beyond a certain point, but the high-end spectrum of the ratings will eventually notice a decrease in how much bang they get for their buck."Arena at the official site You can stockpile a maximum of 5,000 Arena Points. Formulae On 26 September 2007, the formulae used to calculate Arena Points were changed, as outlined on the official site about WoW arena's.Arena Calculator at the official WoW Armory. From season 5 onwards, arena teams below 1500 rating gain points as if they were at 1500 rating. Penalties: :2v2 teams earn 76% of the points of a 5v5 team with the same rating :3v3 teams earn 88% of the points of a 5v5 team with the same rating Pay out requirements To be awarded any points on Tuesday morning (i.e. Monday at midnight) on US servers, Tuesday night (~6:45pm server time, Oceanic, to ensure points for the week, finish your games before 4pm) or Wednesday morning (i.e. Tuesday night at midnight) for EU servers, your team needs to have fought a minimum of ten matches that week and a player must have been in at least 30% of all your matches to be eligible for that week's points (i.e. it is possible to fight only 3 matches and get points - if your team did 10 matches in total) Arena at the official site It is important to note that the points you receive in a given week is determined by only one team, and not by combining all your teams' points. Whichever team you are a member of that would receive the most points after accounting for Team Rating and team type becomes the sole source for your points for that week. Note that 2v2 and 3v3 teams are subject to a handicap where they receive fewer points than a 5v5 team with the same Team Rating. Arena Point Calculators The WoW armory includes an Arena Point Calculator to help you plan earning and spending your arena points. Several community-developed alternatives are also available. Rewards Equipment Arena Rewards include both class-specific armor sets and a selection of unique weapons, off-hands and relics. All Arena Rewards cost only Arena Points to obtain. See Arena Rewards for a full list of current and past Seasonal Arena Rewards. Titles At the end of each Arena season, players that rank among highest ratings within the 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 brackets are awarded titles marking their accomplishments. Team members who have been in at least 20% of a top Arena team's matches and are within 100 personal rating of the team's rating, in each Battlegroup, will receive a title according to their standing (highest to lowest): * Gladiator title also grants a Swift Nether Drake. This page shows all available Titles. An estimation of the ranking needed for each title can be found at: Arena Tournament Titles Every year an Arena Tournament is held where players of all battlegroups compete against each other for cash and prizes. If players meet the prize eligibility requirements, they will receive a title according to their standing: Seasons The seasons are used to determined the winners of Arena Titles and the armored Swift Nether Drake. Teams must be at least in the top 20% to earn any kind of reward; to receive the Swift Netherdrake reward, you must be in the top 0.5% of your battlegroup. At the end of the Season, team ratings and Arena Points are reset; honor, however, is not. Generally, as a new Season begins, the last Season's gear becomes available to purchase solely through honor points (rather than requiring Arena Points). Current Season Season 6 became active on April 21, 2009. Players must be level 80 to participate in ranked matches starting this season. Ended Seasons *The top team in each bracket in each battlegroup gets the title "XXX Gladiator", where XXX is the title of the season, with the exception of Season 1. Additionally, the season titles correspond generally to the gear for that season (Brutal Gladiator's XXX for Season 4 gear) with the exception of season 5, which had Savage, Hateful, and Deadly gear all introduced with LotLK. Criticisms The Arena PvP system is often criticized for giving away good gear that is often equivalent to those found in high level dungeons. Blizzard's reason behind this, however, is to give those who prefer PVP a chance to get quality gear comparable to drops in PVE, thus, allowing players a chance to gain items regardless of what path they choose. The main problem with this is that the current system rewards those players that do not succeed at PVP (albeit to a lesser degree than those who do succeed). In fact, many arena teams are created just for this goal. The term "welfare epics" has been coined, referring to the ease of obtaining epic quality gear from the system. The Arena system has also been criticized for showing the lack of balance among the classes. Many classes are overrepresented in all or some of the brackets because of their strengths in PvP, where as other classes are almost entirely left out. This allows certain class combinations to do extremely well in the arena and gain a high rating, while others must struggle to even compete. Criticism has also been leveled at Blizzard for acting in a way detrimental towards class balance in the Arena. Shamans have received numerous nerfs aimed at weakening Elemental on the Public Test Realm for patch 2.4, despite the fact that they are underrepresented in all brackets of the arena. Warriors, who are overrepresented in all brackets, have been left largely untouched. Prior to Season 6, under-performing teams could receive more points than they would otherwise be due by simply disbanding their team and creating a new one. This was because each team started with a rating of 1500. If under-performing teams keep playing on the same team, their earned points diminish as their rating drops so a new team would refresh the point calculation. This led to criticism that points can effectively be purchased with gold (the cost of purchasing the Team Charter). However, since the launch of Season 6 teams start with a rating of zero and must build their rating to higher levels from scratch. Season 3 Controversy The third season among the Arena PvP system's implementation proved to be the most turbulent to date. Though many players were 100% content with the way Season 3 played out, there were many who did not share such experiences. Although even debate over the existence of the issues themselves brought much controversy over their legitimacy, these sentiments were indeed marked as some of the most pressing issues of Season 3 and the arena PvP system to date. Balance Issues PvP balance in arena has been an ongoing issue through out the first two seasons with the third being no exception. With resources such as http://www.realmhistory.net/ class builds, representation, and team composition data has never been more easy to access, showing the glaring biases which currently exist within the Arena's Third season. Such examples being the dominance of Rogue and Warrior classes among many team compositions and overall class representation in 2000-2200+ rated teams, nearly 50% of the 2000-2200 rated teams within the 3v3 bracket consist of Mage/Priest/Rogue Team Setups, and the popularity and success of the Druid class healers within the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets. Such debates point to improper balancing by developers for the cause for such calamity within the system, and although essentially one would like to believe any class setup or talent specialty to hold viable success based on player proficiency, a blatant pattern arises to point otherwise. Point/Personal Rating Selling - Win Trading A popular phenomenon among players were the acts of purchasing large amounts of arena points and personal ratings required to purchase high lvl PvP equipment. The Process involved paying large amounts of gold for invitations to hold spots on high rated Arena Teams. These high rated teams would then fill the maximum amount of spots the team bracket would allow with individuals looking to purchase Arena Points or Team Personal rating. These teams would then find another Team to act in cohesion with and take part in a process known as 'win trading'. These teams through various methods would be able to fix fights, and assure those who they would combat against in matches would be those in which they were planned to either throw or win fights. This would essentially create 50/50 win loss ratios to assure high rated teams could maintain their high rating, while allowing players who purchased spots to reap the benefits. Such processes were put an end to with the release of Patch 2.4.2 and many players involved with such acts had Account suspensions, Arena Points, Rating and Gear removed. Season Length Season 3 has thus far been the longest Arena season to date causing a marked outcry by the WoW community. Reasons as to the seasons length have been speculated to exist with two major factors. One factor being the parallel of PvE type equipment following that of similar quality among the PvP type equipment. Some believe Blizzard would not allow the existing PvP equipment to be of a greater quality than any PvE type gear acquirable through instanced 25 man raid encounters. There has been developer commentary to support the idea of not releasing higher PvP quality gear till it feels obsolete in comparison to PvE. With the recent World first defeat of Kil'jaeden, the toughest existing Boss that resides in WoW, all the highest PvE loot is currently available for players cunning enough to acquire it. Blizzard has stated that the seasons do match PvE progression. The final door in Sunwell Plateau opened up on May 20th. Blizzard wants that gear to begin circulating a bit before the next season starts. Blizzard states that's how every season works, they wait until a reasonable number of people are able to grab gear from the highest raid before kicking off a season. How much and when, blizzard declines to state. The other factor consists of the season 4 release with attachment to the current Online Arena Tournament hosted by Blizzard. Blizzard stated that gear that is for use on the tournament realms is roughly one season behind the gear acquirable on live realms. Since the arena tournament does not foresee any upgrades accounting for the currently available S2 gear, live realms will remain only available to S3 until the tournament's conclusion July 15th. This also is for measures so that those participating in the Tournament event will not lose interest and be more inclined to focus on their characters on live realms to acquire S4. Arena Queue System Many are upset with the way players are matched by the arena queue system. Many players are frustrated that although they are in a lower rated team they must combat often teams of a higher rating, or those who wear gear represented of higher rated players. With the implementation of patch 2.4.2. it is possible through new means for higher rated teams to play those at a far less rated division through new designs in matchmaking made by players Personal rating. Though gain and loss of points is directly equivalent to team match ups, even a tiny loss in points by defeat by a much higher team, some feel through means that higher rated teams can simply 'farm' those of lower standing. Teams that are facing low ranking teams are also upset with this if they lost to a team that is well below their rating they lose a large amount of their points. If they make a mistake or miss a cc they can lose 25 points or more. While playing those teams it could take 3 games or more to make up those points winning 7 or 8. If you win 4 out of 5 on them you still are going no where. So the people with low rankings are not the only ones that are suffering. Minimum personal rating Welfare epic(s) is a term used by WoW lead designer Jeffrey Kaplan for epic items gained through PvP. It comes from a notion that players can get epic items with little effort. To deal with the problem, a minimum 'personal rating' requirement was added to shoulders and weapons in Season 3, and was expanded to include head, chest and leg items in Season 4. In addition, arena personal rating is required to purchase some honor-based items as well. Patch changes * }} References Sources WoW BlueTracker : : : External links Category:Arena PvP